The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), Alabama State Conference of the NAACP, and the Limestone County Branch of the NAACP sent a letter to the Limestone County Commission expressing the current redistricting plan. The proposed plan would likely diminish the opportunity of Black voters and other voters of color in Limestone County to meaningfully participate in the electoral process by influencing the elections of candidates of their choice. With the current redistricting process, Limestone County has an obligation to create an electoral structure for the Commission that complies with the U.S. Constitution’s equal population mandate, the Fourteenth Amendment’s ban on the unjustified use of race as a predominant consideration in redistricting, and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which forbids racially discriminatory vote dilution. The Commission must not produce maps that intentionally “pack” Black voters into districts with unnecessarily high Black populations or “crack” them into districts with unnecessarily low ones—both of which are stratagems that can illegitimately elevate race over other considerations and wrongfully diminish the political power of Black voters.
Read the full letter here.
Read more about LDF’s redistricting work in Alabama here.
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Founded in 1940, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) is the nation’s first civil and human rights law organization. LDF has been completely separate from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1957—although LDF was originally founded by the NAACP and shares its commitment to equal rights. LDF’s Thurgood Marshall Institute is a multi-disciplinary and collaborative hub within LDF that launches targeted campaigns and undertakes innovative research to shape the civil rights narrative. In media attributions, please refer to us as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund or LDF. Follow LDF on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.